Obama Takes Responsibility for Libya

By

Jay Solomon and

Monica Langley

Updated Oct. 17, 2012 12:18 a.m. ET

President
Barack Obama
said for the first time on Tuesday that he ultimately was responsible for the safety of four Americans who were killed in Libya last month, but denounced as "offensive" Republican charges that the White House initially resisted labeling the incident a terrorist attack.

Libya was one of the few foreign-policy issues raised in Tuesday's 90-minute presidential debate, and Republican challenger
Mitt Romney
repeated his charge that the Obama administration was slow in responding to signs of a growing terrorist threat in Libya and North Africa.

But Mr. Romney's suggestion the Obama administration may have had political motives in failing to initially call the siege on the U.S. consulate a terrorist attack led to one of the sharpest exchanges of the debate.

"The suggestion that anybody in my team, whether the secretary of state, our U.N. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive," Mr. Obama said. "That's not what we do."

Mr. Romney responded: "It took them a long time to say this was a terrorist act by a terrorist group."

Mr. Obama said Mr. Romney should check the transcript of the president's comments from Sept. 12, the day after the attack. And indeed, Mr. Obama did use the word "terror" in his comments in the Rose Garden, though not as precisely as he suggested during the debate. "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation," Mr. Obama said at the time. That statement also referred implicitly to an anti-Islamic video that the administration, in other accounts, initially blamed for protests that led to the assault.

The debate followed interviews given Monday by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton
,
where she defended the White House's actions in Libya and said the State Department was in charge of security at the consulate in Benghazi.

The administration has confronted a series of questions over the shifting explanation for the origin of the Sept. 11 consulate assault. Republican lawmakers on Tuesday continued their push for an independent commission established by the State Department to complete its work before the Nov. 6 presidential vote.

Debate Transcript

Explore the transcript of the second 2012 presidential debate, and tap on yellow notes to read analysis by reporter Jared Favole.

That appears unlikely. State Department officials announced the commission, called an Accountability Review Board, on Sept. 20. In an official notice on Oct. 4, officials said the board must report its findings within 60 days, unless its chairman requests more time.

Some Republicans are charging that the workings of the board, headed by retired State Department diplomat Thomas Pickering, are holding up the investigations of Benghazi taking place in the Senate and House.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said she takes responsibility for security at the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in an attack last month. Monica Langley has details on The News Hub. Photo: Reuters.

"The commission has an important role in helping to reach final conclusions about what happened in Benghazi," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif), who is heading a House probe into the attack. "The commission should not, however, be an excuse for delaying other necessary efforts to determine what happened and what steps need to be immediately taken to protect our diplomats overseas."

Mr. Pickering said Tuesday the review was progressing, but he couldn't say how long it might take. "Generally, we're doing what we need to do to complete our report," he said in San Francisco, where a public memorial for Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya slain in Benghazi, was being readied.

Republican criticisms of the State Department over Libya have intensified in recent days after two former security officers stationed in Libya testified that their requests for an increase in U.S. diplomatic security in the country were denied. The State Department disputes some of that testimony.

The discussion about Libya during the debate began with a citizen's question to Mr. Obama about a lack of security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Mr. Obama did not directly explain during the debate why there were security complaints by U.S. officials in Libya.

At the presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney trade barbs over what Mr. Obama said following the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Mrs. Clinton, in recent interviews, sought to deflect political pressure on Mr. Obama by saying she took responsibility for any security lapses in the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens.

"I'm the secretary of state with 60,000-plus employees around the world. This is like a big family.…It's painful, absolutely painful," the former first lady said.

Mr. Issa on Tuesday praised Mrs. Clinton's statements on Libya: "Secretary Clinton showed leadership in acknowledging her ultimate responsibility for security failures that took place within her department before the events of Sept. 11, 2012."

Still, Mrs. Clinton's statements seemed to do little to damp the broader GOP push to attack Mr. Obama's national-security credentials going into the final weeks of the campaign. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama has campaigned on his national-security record, highlighting the killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, the battle against al Qaeda in Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and efforts to weaken Iran economically.

More

Republican criticism has partly been fueled by the Obama administration's shifting descriptions of the assault. Senior officials had initially said the attack on Benghazi stemmed from a "spontaneous" reaction in the Muslim world to the posting of a U.S.-made video that mocked the Islamic faith's Prophet Muhammad. The White House later said the assault represented a terrorist attack.

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com.